


coupled.

by sam_roulette



Series: raising emerald cities with voice alone. [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Anxiety, Body Horror, The Corruption Fear Entity (The Magnus Archives), Vomit Mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:21:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28279050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sam_roulette/pseuds/sam_roulette
Summary: “[Jon] shakes his head as if he’s just woken up from a daydream and Tim thinksOh God.and Tim and Tim’s voice thinkFinally.andGood morning! You’ll want to be awake for this.andDo you want to hear a real story?”The voice of God just takes, and it takes, and it takes.
Series: raising emerald cities with voice alone. [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2068116
Kudos: 12





	coupled.

Sometimes it goes like this.

Tim bursts into Jon’s office. Jon starts and hits his knee on his desk and swears. Tim can’t exactly blame him. He hasn’t been the most pleasant person to be around--or rather, he’s been _far too pleasant_ a person to be around. Tim has been _too safe,_ and Jon doesn’t know, or doesn’t know why, or maybe it’s that he _shouldn’t_ know why, or--

And then there’s a moment, a shift in Jon’s facial expression, when Tim nearly yells Jon’s name in a panic. Except what leaves Tim’s lips doesn’t actually come out as a yell, and Jon doesn’t look panicked; instead, he _melts._ His facial expression softens into something that Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, has likely never worn and should definitely never wear. Not like this. Not in this place. 

If Tim’s own reflexes still controlled his throat he would’ve thrown up in the bin by the door.

“I…” Tim starts, unprompted, anxiety knotting in his stomach as he fights against the words. “I don’t want it here--don’t want them here--I want it to go away.”

“What is it, Tim?” Jon asks, his voice gentle and his expression _too caring, too soft, too much._

“It’s… I don’t know, Jon, but it’s _there._ It’s _here,_ I guess, and it won’t--won’t leave me alone.” Tim runs his hands through his hair as he starts to pace around Jon’s office. He feels tears pricking the corners of his eyes. “It won’t leave anyone alone.”

Jon’s expression changes at this, hardens into something more noticeable and more palatable and more _Jon._ He shakes his head as if he’s just woken up from a daydream and Tim thinks _Oh God._ and Tim and Tim’s voice think _Finally._ and _Good morning! You’ll want to be awake for this._ and _Do you want to hear a real story?_

 _“Tim,”_ Jon presses, and there’s more… weight to it this time. Tim can’t tell if Jon knows what he’s doing, but Tim knows. That thing crawling beneath his skin _knows_ and, unsurprisingly, doesn’t seem to mind. _“You need to tell me what it is or we can’t move past this.”_

Tim feels the buzzing in his throat and his brain and his bones come to a halt, feels his breath catch for a moment, feels the tears drying against his skin. He smiles for the first time in ages, and finds himself both far too excited and far too tired to consider how voluntary the action really is. He really hasn’t been sleeping very well. 

“There is an emerald buried somewhere,” he starts, his voice smooth and honeyed. He starts to pace again, slower this time, his hands clasped behind his back while his feet trace winding patterns across the floor of Jon’s office. Tim and Tim’s voice relish in the slow, methodical backdrop of boots against wooden boards, and they continue:

“Deep below the surface, between bone and gristle and grit and fluid, it shines. It reflects its living darkness in the form of a hum, soft and tender and forgiving. Inviting, perhaps, though it does not wish for companionship. It has already found more than enough of _that_ to sate a lifetime of longing. 

Its wish is, in fact, quite banal: It wishes to build a nest. To cultivate all that it is and has and _create_ _life._ It lives only for the moment it gets to watch the greatest of gifts hatch and buzz and burst forth into new worlds. 

Perhaps it is too simplistic to say that it is this ever-glistening jewel which hums, for it lacks the proper instrument to do so. It does not need it when strings and shapes and sounds can be found elsewhere.

No, it cannot itself hum--but it can occupy and infest. It can manipulate and move.”

Tim’s voice pauses its speech and Tim pauses his steps and looks pointedly at Jon, surveying his facial expressions and body language for a moment. He doesn’t seem to be _enjoying_ the story, but maybe he just doesn’t _get it_ yet. Tim feels himself--feels his symbiote--switch gears for a moment. Maybe what Jon needs is _background._

“Have you ever looked at a video of the vocal cords?” he asks, his head cocked slightly. Jon shakes his head silently and wordlessly, and Tim and Tim’s voice continue, the same smile on his face.

“Well, we call them “cords” colloquially, picture and discuss them as strings to be plucked and tuned. Sometimes we simplify things even further and call what is perhaps the most complex anatomical structure in the human body a “voice box.” It is rather contained, sure, and it does vibrate as strings do, but it is so, _so_ much more than that. 

The apparatus in its entirety is bone and muscle and mucus and air, tangled and working together whether you will its work or remain woefully ignorant of it. It really is such a beautiful thing, and we know so very little about it. People waste their entire lives trying and failing to answer single, burning questions about how it works…” 

Tim hesitates again for a moment when he notices that Jon still doesn’t seem to be following. Instead, he just seems _alarmed_. He’s still watching, though, so Tim’s voice continues:

“What we _do_ know is that, although we call them “cords,” they are actually complicated, multi-layered folds of muscle and other tissues. The fleshy interior of the folds in fact does very little--it simply moves the two masses toward or away from one another while the surface layers do the rest. All it takes is proximity and enough of an air current from our flesh bag lungs,” Tim hesitates, and feels his smile faltering as he eyes Jon’s confused face. “You do know that our lungs are just air-filled flesh bags, correct?” he asks.

Jon gulps rather loudly and nods, and Tim’s smile grows again when his nerves and his own throat settle.

“Excellent, then in that case it should follow that really, any air current will do the trick.” his voice hesitates again, searching for the words. “If you have an air current--or any kind of fast vibration--then those wispy surface layers vibrate in turn.”

Tim feels his thoughts drift for a moment, and he starts humming softly, but he barely gets three notes out before Jon quite literally snaps him out of it. His fingers are almost touching Tim’s ear as they click and he grits a single _“Tim”_ out between his teeth.

“No need to be so harsh,” Tim and Tim’s voice say, throwing Jon a mildly offended expression before continuing again. “Some things are just lovely enough to sing about, you know? I’m sure you know that.

Anyway--as it stands, I could not tell you how long it has been since my lungs did all the grunt work. I can feel that I am breathing--I _must_ be breathing--but I can also feel _it_ in there, buzzing against pliable tissue. Wings create currents of their own, and a motive such as that which fuels this little diamond in the rough really can make one feel _oh so creative._

It _is_ quite ironic, isn’t it, that such a family-oriented creature would take this much pleasure in making me sing?”

Tim isn’t looking at Jon anymore; he’s looking at his voice, and his voice is looking back, and it whispers and it hums: “A madness most discreet, a choking gall and a preserving sweet.”

Tim’s voice’s words settle over the room and Tim finds himself shuddering, feels the nausea return, feels a wave of goosebumps ripple across his skin. He clears his throat _\--oh, that doesn’t feel right at all--_ and, after swaying on his feet for a couple of seconds, collapses into Jon’s desk chair. 

He dreams of all of them--of love and loneliness and ĺ̶̠̱̤̩͊́̓̕͟͜ō͠s̈̅̒̂s͐͌̕ and contempt--and when he wakes up he feels nothing but the usual.

**Author's Note:**

> The emerald cockroach wasp or jewel wasp (Ampulex compressa) is a solitary wasp of the family Ampulicidae.


End file.
